A lot of liberals talk of a person “right” to health care, cheap housing, etc. A good example is the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Now, if the word “right” is interpreted as it is used in the Bill of Rights, this means that the government may not interfere with a person trying to secure these things. Yet I don’t think it would be presumptuous of me to think that most people promoting such statements do not mean that, but rather that the government is obligated to provide these things. This is odds with how the word “right” is used in the Bill of Rights. The right to free speech doesn’t mean that the government must provide you with something to say, it just means that if you already have something to say, the government can’t prevent you from saying it. The right to bear arms doesn’t mean that the government must give everyone a gun, it just means that if you have a gun, the government can’t take it away from you. The closest to an exception is the interpretation that the sixth amendment requires the government to provide counsel to anyone accused of a crime. However, even in that case the government does not have a general obligation to provide people with lawyers, any more than the right to a jury trial imposes a general obligation on the government to provide panels to listen to people’s grievances. Furthermore, the government is allowed to pursue compensation.
So the idea behind this statement goes beyond the true meaning of the word “right”, yet it is worded to make it sound like it doesn’t. If I say that I’m against this, then people can say “So you don’t think that people should be allowed to have these things?” It’s a bit like “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” No matter what I say, it can be twisted to mean something other than what I mean.
I therefore have two assertions to be debated (obviously, implicit in the second is the presumption that you agree with the first; if you don’t, then only the first one is really debatable):
The statement in question does not actually mean that people have the right to these things, but that the government is obligated to provide these things.
By avoiding saying that the government is obligated to provide these things, when that is clearly what they mean, the writers of this statement were being disingenuous. If they wish to assert that the government is obligated to provide these things, then they should say that the government is obligated to provide these things, rather than equivocating on the meaning of the word “right”.
This goes for liberals in general: if they want to claim that the government has an obligation, then they should say so instead of making it sound like they’re saying something else.
Someone needs to go back to political science 101 and learn the difference between positive and negative rights, neither of which are misuses of the word “right.”
In the constitution and Bill of Rights, the term “right” is used as something which the people have and which the gov’t may not infringe upon. Rights are used to deliniate those areas into which the gov’t may not intrude.
To say that someone has a 'right" to some material thing which must be provided by another person is utter nonsense., unless one assumes that certain people must be, ineffect, slaves for others.
While we may agree, politically, to provide a social safety net to for the poor and/or the needy. But that does not gvie those individuals a right to that assistance. They receive it by fortune of being part of an affluent society which is willing to provide those things.
As Apos said, Poli Sci 101 would be helpful for the OP… actually come to think of it, it would not.
As for Mace, well you may recall that the US Constitution is not the sole document in the world, the OP refers to a UN document. Whatever the utility of the same, simple reference to the US constitutional usage in an OP that seems boundlessly general strikes me as rather empty and self-regarding at best.
Now it would appear The Ryan would like another one of his semantic games in place of simply straight out debating the real issue, i.e. rights and utility thereof.
[“Now it would appear The Ryan would like another one of his semantic games in place of simply straight out debating the real issue, i.e. rights and utility thereof.”]
Uh… Collounsbury, debating is a semantic game. Of course “straight out debating the real issue” might be something else but I hate the term “issue”. It’s use and overuse seems many times an attempt to formalize fuzzy ideas. Would you be so kind as to elaborate on what you mean by “rights and the utility thereof” ?
There is no misuse - this is stupid. You have Constitutional rights, Legislative rights and Human rights
You have the right to protection by the police
You have the right to have passport/papers issued by the police
You have the right not to be subject of torture by the police
The idea that there is a monopoly on the word right because it’s used in the Bill of Rights is nonsense. And claiming that the UN cannot use the word right is Americanized and self-centred.
You have the right to anything written into law
You have the right to freedom and opportunity
And you have the right to turn right
Debating is a semantical game? In what bloody fucking sense? One can of course debate semantics, although in my opinion it’s almost always a sterile endeavor, or one can go the substance.
I frankly couldn’t care less about your like or dislike of the issue of issue, but in response to the question of caring to elaborate, no I don’t care to elaborate. Why the fuck should I, it’s fucking simple: debate rights, those he likes, those he doesn’t on their own ground rather than this self-regarding semantical crap he likes to engage in.
The quote that you give does strike me as something that should be listed under something like “The Roles and Responsibilities of a Government”. I’ve never had political science 101 so I don’t know about positive and negative rights, but it sure seems that the statement confuses governmental obligations and individual rights.
I thought that Constitutional rights could not be revoked - that the government cannot take those rights away from its citizens. Yet, I’ve read that convicts has had their right to vote taken away from them. How is that legal? Or isn’t voting in the Constitution?
I frankly couldn’t care less about your like or dislike of the issue of issue, but in response to the question of caring to elaborate, no I don’t care to elaborate. Why the fuck should I, it’s fucking simple: debate rights, those he likes, those he doesn’t on their own ground rather than this self-regarding semantical crap he likes to engage in.
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My!.. Oh I see…its fucking simple.
semantics n. the study of the meanings of words.
How refreshing! Let’s have a debate but let’s not use words.
And the way the word “right” is used in the Bill of Rights is odds with how it is used in the Declaration of Human Rights. Your point is?
You refered several times to the Bill of Rights at the ultimate source to decide what the word “right” real meaning is. I see no reason to follow you in this arbitrary assumption.
The statement in question does not actually mean that people have the right to these things, but that the government is obligated to provide these things.
If they wish to assert that the government is obligated to provide these things, then they should say that the government is obligated to provide these things, rather than equivocating on the meaning of the word “right”.
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I agree. And, I think this usage has two problems.
It doesn’t work to call these things “rights.” When the Constitution says we have a right to free speech or to bear arms, we know how to maintain this. Courts and other institutions prevent the government from taking these rights away from the people. OTOH when the UN says all the world has a right to adequate diet, that nice-sounding statement doesn’t lead to specific actions that put food in people’s mouths.
Muddling the meaning of “rights” reduces the support for protecting rights in the original sense. E.g., a popular idea is that rights are meaningless if one is poor. That idea leads to a willingness to curtail people’s rights while imposing redistributionist schemes.
So, Collounsbury has come back to this message board, claiming a renewed commitment to mature discussion. How does his contribuition to this thread rate?
Insult.
Obvious statement contributing nothing.
Looks like an insult.
Insult.
The post doesn’t have a single piece of useful contribution to the thread. Just insults. Perhaps the description of the BBQ Pit should be changed to “If you gotta flame, do it here. This is the place for all complaints and other discussion regarding administration of the SDMB, as well as all posts by Colounsbury”.
Alien
Well, no the Constitution doesn’t ever state that the everyone has the right to vote.
clairobscur
More precisely, I cited the Bill of Rights as an example of the word being used (IMO) correctly. And I presented the idea that the “liberal” (I really should be putting quotes around that word, since I’m using it for a lack of a better term, not because I believe that all liberals think this way) conception of rights is incorrect not as a settled fact, but as an issue to be debated. If you wish to refute the claim that the “liberal” use of the word “right” confuses the issue and does not do a good job of describing the situation, then go ahead.
If it makes you feel any better, I found your phrasing of the point to be the most polite.
Why is it incorrect? You have yet to make any sort of case that the way that it is used in the Bill of Rights is the only correct usage, aside from citing its usage in the Bill of Rights.
Again, why is the usage in the Bill of Rights more correct than the one in the UDHR?
Mirriam-Webster defines “right” as:
1 : qualities (as adherence to duty or obedience to lawful authority) that together constitute the ideal of moral propriety or merit moral approval
2 : something to which one has a just claim
3 : something that one may properly claim as due
As far as I can see, giving people a right to housing or adequate food is just as valid as giving them a right to free speech. It just depends on what your society decides is a right.
The OP’s question is valid in that the use of the term “right” should be consistent.
It makes no sense to say that the right to free speech and the right to decent housing are interchangeable if “right” is not defined.
The OP chose to use the definition of “right” as that which the government cannot take away.
In that sense the right to decent housing is not a “right” as such.
The government has no obligation to provide it.
One of the other posters put it best (paraphrase) in that assistance may be offered to those who need it but is by the generosity of the richer society, not due to any legal or moral obligation.
To the Scandinavian poster: voting privileges can be suspended if one is convicted of a felony. I believe this privilege returns once the person has served their sentence.
So the Declaration of Human Rights says it. Unless it defines how it is to be provided, it is an empty right.